1. Field
The present invention is related to search engine technologies including human-assisted search engines and, more particularly, to method and system for viral marketing of a search service.
2. Description of the Related Art
Viral marketing techniques have become a popular method for marketing products. The systems work on the ability to give away a service such as email (hotmail or Gmail for example) in order to generate a user base. Viral marketing works on a few simple principles. There must be an easy way to tell others about the service. The service must be able to scale rapidly to accommodate user growth. People must have a basic motivation to spread the service, such as socializing, or being popular due to being the first kid to find the cool new band, etc. It must utilize existing communication resources such as email, blogs, IM, telephone mail, etc. so that the message passes rapidly to large numbers of people. Lastly, it should utilize resources which are outside the perimeter of the service itself.
Such techniques have propagated many types of services. Popular sites such as YouTube™, Facebook® and products like Adobe® Acrobat®, or the Netscape® Navigator internet browser were enabled by viral marketing techniques. However, such systems do not attempt to provide a ‘genomic path’ wherein the person who recruits a user can be recognized for the person's recruitment effort. Likewise, there is no metric to determine which methods of getting the word out were most effective since any user looks just like every other user.
Marketing methods which provide traceability of recruitment allow recruitment efforts to be recognized and compensated. In addition, the effects of marketing campaigns can be measured. However, such techniques have not been applied to viral marketing.
In light of the above and other problems there is a need for a method and system for traceable viral marketing.